Source:  AAC Weekly Update

The following message from Canon Phil Ashey first appeared in the July 12, 2013 edition of the AAC’s Weekly Email Update. Sign up for this free email here. 

“I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” St. Paul in I Corinthians 9:22

 “This is the challenge: If you don’t contextualize enough, no one’s life will be transformed because they won’t understand you. But if you contextualize too much, no one’s life will be transformed because you won’t be challenging their deepest assumptions and calling them to change.” Tullian Tchividjian, “Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different”

Dear Friends in Christ,

On Monday night I was enjoying the table discussion in our inductive-manuscript Bible study with almost 60 others, mostly people in their 20’s. I was struck by the question a young man next to me raised: “How does this Biblical text about Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4, written 2,000 years ago and to a different culture, apply to me and to us today?” This is the question of contextualization. How do we speak Biblical truth in a language that our own culture can understand? How can we apply it to our own context with up-to-the-minute relevance? And how can we do so without compromising the whole truth that Christ and the Bible offer?

Tullian Tchividjian, Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (PCA), Ft Lauderdale FL, addressed this very question in his book “Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different” (NY: Doubleday, 2009). Because his remarks are so clear and succinct, permit me to quote him at length:

“Edith Schaeffer, wife of the late Francis Schaeffer, wrote about a visit the two of them made to San Francisco in 1968. One night they went to Fillmore West to hang out with the druggies and hippies and take in a light show. She records how heartbroken they were as they witnessed on that night “the lostness of humanity in search of peace where there is no peace.” She concluded, “A time of listening is needed-listening to what the next generation is saying, listening to the words of the music they are listening to, listening to the meaning behind the words. If true communication is to continue, there is a language to be learned.”

In other words, our motivation for communicating the good news of Jesus Christ with up to-the-minute relevance lies in Christ’s heart to reach the least, the last and the lost all around us.

“Contextualization begins with a broken heart for the lost and a driving desire to help them understand God’s liberating truth,” says Tchividjian. “Only by real listening and learning can we hope to persuasively communicate God’s unchanging Word to our constantly changing world.” But he goes on to make this equally compelling point:

“Sadly, some well-meaning Christians conclude otherwise. For these Christians, contextualization means the same thing as compromise. They believe it means giving people what they want and telling people what they want to hear. What they misunderstand, however, is that contextualization means giving people God’s answers (which they may not want) to the questions they’re really asking and in ways they can understand.”

In short, contextualization without compromise means we must speak in a language people understand, but we must also be willing to speak truths that people may not want to hear. This is exactly the point Lesslie Newbiggin made in “Foolishness to the Greeks: the Gospel in Western Culture” (Eerdmans, 1986). Contextualization without compromise involves three dimensions: (1) speaking Gospel truth in a language people can understand; (2) Radically challenging the assumptions of the secular culture to which we are speaking while calling the culture into Gospel repentance, and (3) recognizing that this is a supernatural work that can only be accomplished by God himself rather than by human persuasion alone.

In a recent interview, Pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer Church in Manhattan, NYC captured the dilemma this poses as we seek to present the transforming love of Jesus Christ to a secular world. Keller put it this way: “to over-contextualize to a new generation means you can make an idol out of their culture, but to under-contextualize to a new generation means you can make an idol out of the culture you come from. So there’s no avoiding it.”

We must look at ourselves and confess that Anglicans in North America have a long ways to go in translating the Bible and building relational bridges with non-Christians. It will take hard work to be missionary-minded in all we do. But I believe we are up to the challenge of communicating the good news of Jesus Christ clearly, compellingly and comprehensibly to those who don’t share our convictions and worldview. As long as our motivation is the same as Jesus’ – to have compassion on those who are scattered, hurt, and lost – we will be able to communicate the whole truth of the Gospel to the whole person in a way they can understand. Love demands it.

But here is the challenge, as Tchividjian so eloquently puts it:

“If you don’t contextualize enough, no one’s life will be transformed because they won’t understand you. But if you contextualize too much, no one’s life will be transformed because you won’t be challenging their deepest assumptions and calling them to change…. Becoming ‘all things to all people’, therefore, does not mean fitting in with the fallen patterns of this world so that there is no distinguishable difference between Christians and non-Christians. While rightly living ‘in the world,’ we must avoid the extreme of accommodation – being ‘of the world.’ It happens when Christians, in their attempt to make proper contact with the world, go out of their way to adopt worldly styles, standards, and strategies.”

How do we know when we have gone too far in contextualizing? Bishop +Michael Nazir-Ali gives Anglicans and all Christian missionaries a bright line not to cross when he says “The process of inculturation must not in any way deny what is essential [including the doctrine of creation] to the gospel itself. Secondly…we cannot, because of a process of inculturation produce forms of the Christian faith that are entirely opaque to Christians elsewhere.” (“Truth and Unity in Christian Fellowship,” Latimer Briefing 7, 2007, p. 7)

Serious concerns have been raised by Archbishop Wabukala of Kenya (on behalf of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) about both the Archbishops of York and Canterbury’s public statements approving same-sex Civil Partnerships during parliamentary debates on the UK’s ‘gay marriage’ legislation, in contradiction to the historic biblical teaching on human sexuality reaffirmed by the 1998 Lambeth Conference. This follows an earlier warning by the Archbishop and Primate of Nigeria regarding the Church of England’s apparent embrace of Civil Partnerships. The statements of ++Canterbury and ++York appear to have crossed that bright line of not compromising the Gospel by denying what is essential – including the doctrine of creation with respect to human sexuality and marriage, and the reaffirmation of these essentials by the 1998 Lambeth Conference. The letters of both the Archbishops of Kenya and Nigeria are prima facie evidence that the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, speaking for the Church of England, are producing “forms of Christianity that are opaque to Christians elsewhere.”

This is what happens when Christians try to eliminate the counter-cultural, unfashionable features of the biblical message because those features are unpopular in the wider culture. As Tchividjian observes:

“When we reduce sin to a lack of self-esteem, deny the exclusivity of Christ, or downplay the reality of knowable absolute truth – we’ve moved from contextualization to compromise. When we accommodate our culture by jettisoning key themes of the gospel, such as suffering, humility, persecution, service, and self-sacrifice, we actually do our world more harm than good. For love’s sake, compromise is to be avoided at all costs.”

The Bible teaches us that under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, Christ’s truth applies to all people, at all times and in all places. It does not merely address “spiritual things” and leave a religion-free zone in the public square. Biblical truth, Christ’s truth, covers every area, every context and every relationship in our lives. For this reason, Tchividjian concludes, “Jesus not only calls us to himself, he also calls us to break with everything which conflicts with his Lordship.”

And that means breaking not only with homophobia and bullying, but with every behavior – including affirming same-sex relationships – that undermines God’s desire for our flourishing by living according to all his ordinances. Those ordinances include marriage between one man and one woman for life, so ably defended by the Church of England in “Men and Women in Marriage.”

For love’s sake, for Christ’s sake, we cannot compromise any dimension of His transforming love for anyone in need.

Yours in Christ,

Phil+

The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey

Chief Operating and Development Officer, American Anglican Council